The Pylon
by EvilDoctor1
Summary: Prequel to a Land of the Lost reboot concept. A mysterious artifact is found in a cave in a Central American jungle.
1. Introduction

Introduction:

Some time ago I came up with an idea of a reboot of the '70s children's show _Land of the Lost_. It would be adult, darker in tone to the original with a large cast, essentially _Lost _with dinosaurs and aliens.

Last September, a writing challenge was issued on AH dot Com to write a story involving a lost civilization. I decided to dust off my LotL reboot idea. Instead of doing a story set in the pocket universe, I decided to do a prequel. It would represent the very beginning, an event that would trigger all the other events, and explain away one huge coincidence I had in my original concept.

If you are expecting all the familiar characters and settings of the original series, you will be disappointed. Only the pylon will show up, but there it's a bit different. For one thing, you will find the characters in this story calling it "The Obelisk". In my main reboot, most of the characters eventually call them 'pylons', however in this story it made more sense for the characters to call it a more classical name. You will also find that there are a few subtle changes to the characteristics of the pylon, for one, it opens up slightly differently.

I guess I should also mention that there is one other character that appeared briefly in the original series as an illusion, and was deceased before the original series began. Here she is very much alive, has a first name and an occupation. I also have no desire to kill her off at any point…

I should also note that I've made the style of this in the form of a techno thriller, inspired by Michael Crichton and Tom Clancy.

I first wrote this story for AH dot Com and will continue to update it there first as a test run before bringing the improved version over here.

Without further ado, I present Evil Doctor's very first fan fiction…


	2. Chapter 1

**Tapir Mountain Nature Reserve, Belize**

A jungle that is normally filled with the calls and roars of various creatures is suddenly and briefly drowned out by a loud and fast moving helicopter containing several military personnel and three somewhat baffled scientists. Dr. Alex Boynton takes a quick glance out the window looks at the sea of green as the Bell 212 skims across the jungle canopy. He doesn't consider himself a nervous flyer, but right now he wishes they would fly a little higher. It doesn't help that he had no idea why anyone would request an astrophysicist in the middle of a jungle. If he was going to die in a helicopter that blundered into a tree in a jungle, he would prefer it was in the service of some great discovery that changes our understanding of the universe.

"Great view isn't it?" crackled his headset.

One of the difficulties of riding in a helicopter was that it was very loud and you could only talk to one another via headsets. You could never be sure who was talking, or even if they were talking to you. Nobody was looking at him.

The man sitting next to him was a geologist named Prof. Harold Morton. He is a fairly gregarious and sometimes too loud Englishman. He suddenly turned to Alex and said "Ever been to Belize before?"

Alex only shook his head no.

"Been here many times myself" continued Morton. "They have a huge extensive cave system, one of the largest in the world. It's absolutely wondrous."

"Great" was all Alex could manage. _ I don't suppose one of them might contain a neutrino detector? _He thought. His curiosity was getting the better of him and he had to see if his seat mate was holding out on him. "Are you sure you have no idea why they need us?" pried Alex.

Morton gave him a quick sideways glance. "I told you, I have no idea, they will brief us when we get there."

"All I know is that Dr. Sarah Marshall is heading the team."

Both Alex and Morton looked across to their formally silent compatriot sitting across from them. Dr. John Kraus is an anthropologist, who looked like he was a white knuckle flyer at the best of times, had his eyes closed and head down through most of this flight. Apart from some forced pleasantries before the flight, this was the first time he spoke.

"Sarah?" inquired Alex.

"You know her?"

"Yes," replied Alex, "personally, in fact. We were colleagues at Berkeley, before I moved to Tucson."

"So who is this Sarah Marshall?" questioned Morton.

"DOCTOR Sarah Marshall is a fairly world renowned archeologist." Morton looked at Alex with a blank stare, so he continued, "She is also married to Dr. Rick Marshall."

Morton's face brightened at this, and produced a broad smile. "Rick Marshall? The Animal Doctor?" Morton let out a loud laugh at this. "I love his show! That guy is absolutely crazy!"

"Well actually…" started Alex before he was interrupted by a crackle from the pilot, "We are approaching our destination, and we will be landing shortly."

Kraus immediately went back into his crash position while Morton eagerly looked out the window again, but almost immediately he let out a small angry growl. "They've clear cut a section of jungle to create a helicopter landing area…and they've brought in heavy drilling machinery! Bloody fools!"

Alex gave another quick glance out the window. He couldn't see the clear cut area, but he could easily see two large cranes towering above the trees. What the hell has he gotten himself into?


	3. Chapter 2

The helicopter touched down in the landing without incident though with enough of a bump to jangle what was left of Kraus' nerves. No sooner than the doors were opened, Kraus practically launched himself out, landing hard in the dirt, much to the amusement of Morton and the mix of Belize and British servicemen. Alex jumped out to help up Kraus, who was almost lovingly groping the ground.

While the servicemen split off to their assigned rides, the trio was met by an officer that introduced himself as Col. Gregory Brock of the British 25 Flight Army Air Corps and responsible for security for the site. After the exchange of pleasantries, they hustled into a waiting jeep and drove off down a makeshift roadway with Col. Brock at the wheel. It was only a short drive of a couple of minutes down a fairly bumpy hill when they reached the main camp. The camp was a hive of activity, with one large tent and several smaller tents that ringed the encampment. At the centre were the two cranes, one off to one side with a large boring drill bit and the other with a cage like platform over a large hole, presumably being used as an elevator. As the jeep came to a stop, two people walked over, one of whom Alex immediately recognized.

"Sarah!" exclaimed Alex as he jumped out of the jeep and rushed towards her. "It's so good to see you again!"

Sarah accepted Alex's hug enthusiastically, "It's been too long. It's so good to see you too. I see Tucson is agreeing with you. Oh, good to see you too, John, you're looking well."

A scowl crossed Kraus' face, "No thanks to you."

"Oh baby, you still love me don't you?"

"Why else would I risk certain death by flying down here?" A twinkle entered his eye and his face broke into a broad smile, "We couldn't have done this in Burbank?" For the first time since Alex met him a laugh escaped Kraus' lips. It was nice to know a different a different side of him other than that of the aerophobe. Sarah and Kraus give a quick warm friendly embrace.

"Well," chuckled Col. Brock, "I guess we can keep the introductions short. Col. Price, Dr. Marshall, this is astrophysicist Dr. Alex Boynton, anthropologist Dr. John Kraus, and geologist Prof. Harold Morton. Gentlemen, this is Dr. Sarah Marshall, head of the science team here, and Col. John Price of the BDF and overall commander of our little project here."

"Oh, it's you that needs a talking to!" roared Morton suddenly and angrily at Col. Price. "What is the idea of clear cutting large swaths of this jungle and bringing in such large machinery? Are you aware of the irreparable damage you are doing to this ecosystem? Not to mention drilling into your cave system! Apart from the shear vandalism of it, you're polluting sensitive aquifers!"

"Okay! Calm down!" retorted Col. Price, "I already have APAMO screaming bloody murder over this. Believe me, I have been informed of the consequences of this, but we have clearance from the PMO, and once you know what we're doing here, you will understand why we took such drastic action here! Trust me."

"Trust you…?" began Morton before being interrupted by Col. Brock. "Well on that note, perhaps we should proceed to the briefing. There are three other people waiting patiently for you three to arrive, and find out why everyone is here. Now if everyone can come this way, we can get our little tea party started."


	4. Chapter 3

Morton glowered at Col. Price as the group moved towards the main tent, but held his tongue. As they entered the tent Alex could see it was a beehive of activity. Many areas were being walled off with plastic sheeting, and expensive looking equipment was still being unpacked and set up. Morton's mood seemed to lift as "Ooo" and "Wow" could be heard escape his lips as looked at the various devices. They were lead down to one end of the tent that had been closed off with white canvas that was lifted up to allow group to enter. Inside were a table, several folding chairs and three women and a man looking expectantly at the newcomers. After more introductions were made, Alex found out that the new people were Jane August, who's with the Xibalba Mapping and Exploration Team and would be assisting with the briefing, Amy Chu, whose specialty is cryptology, Prof. Kathy Reichs a forensic anthropologist, and Dr. Anil Maheshwari, biochemist and microbiologist. Everyone settled around the tables and was given blue folders.

Sarah stood up and began, "If nobody has any objections, I'd like to begin this briefing." She paused and glanced around. "Good. The event that brought you here began one month ago. Two recreational cave divers found a previously undiscovered underwater passageway, no doubt uncovered by a moderate earthquake that hit the area a couple of months ago. That passageway leads to a chamber that contained this." Sarah held up a photograph. It was the same photograph contained in the blue folders. Alex stared at it. It looked like an unremarkable black marble structure with a silver diamond shape on the front partially cut off at ground level.

"We've dubbed it The Obelisk."

Kraus was the first to speak, "It doesn't look Mayan."

"No, it isn't"

Morton had put his reading glasses on to get a better look at the photo, peered up over the rims at Sarah, "Has this photo been retouched in any way?"

Sarah made a quick glance at Col. Brock before answering, "No, why do you ask?"

"Well the black portion of this 'Obelisk' isn't reflecting any light, showing no shadows." Alex peered at the photograph. Morton was right, The Obelisk was uniformly black from top to bottom, not a pixel of variation. If it wasn't for the diamond shape, it would have had the illusion of some doorway into a deep abyss. Morton continued, "What material is this made from?"

"We don't know."

"What do you mean you don't know? How can you not know?"

Sarah took a breath before answering, "As far as we can tell, The Obelisk was not constructed with any known terrestrial technology."

Maheshwari was the first to speak, "Are you saying aliens made this?"

"We're working with the premise that a non-terrestrial species constructed this." replied Col. Brock.

Morton let out a long loud laugh. "I can't believe this; I think you guys are actually serious! Aliens! I take it we will each have a chance to examine this to see for ourselves?"

"That is why you are here." replied a slightly exasperated Col. Price, who seemed to have enough of the geologist.

"Have you tried moving the artifact?" questioned Kraus.

Col. Price stood up, "Actually that was the first thing we tried. We built a road to the site and brought in the heavy cranes to drill down and haul up The Obelisk. We couldn't budge it. That's when we knew we needed outside help."

Alex finally had a chance to contribute something, "So it could either be made from super-dense material…"

"Which it can't be." interrupted Morton. "There is no sign of compression stress around the artifact. If it was so heavy that it can't be moved, it probably would have sunk into the Earth already."

"…or its anchored somehow." finished Alex.

"Precisely." smiled Col. Brock.

Prof. Reichs was the next to speak, she had been busy flipping through her folder and looking at the other photos, "I take it these skeletal remains are the reason I and Dr. Kraus are here?"

"Yes," replied Sarah, "We found the entire cave and some of the underwater passageway littered with remains. We would like know if these are Mayan remains, if they are even human, and, if possible, what they died of."

Maheshwari spoke up, "I would guess suffocation due to oxygen deprivation. There appears to originally be only one way in or out of the cave and that way is underwater. It would take a long time for the oxygen from the lichen in the cave and oxygen from the water to filter back into the air. It certainly could not produce enough oxygen to be able to sustain a human being."

"Well that is one of those things we will be looking at."

"Who all knows about this?" asked Kraus

Col. Price replied, "Beyond us and others in this camp, there is the Belize government obviously and the British government, whom we asked for help when we realized our resources wouldn't be enough to deal with this properly."

"I should add that once we've completed our studies of the artifact, we will be releasing the information to the general public." clarified Col. Brock.

The meeting continued on, getting into the fine details of what's been done already, what they hope to accomplish, and the protocols in place to continue their examination. Jane August went into details about the cave itself and some of the potential hazards that they should be wary of. Once the meeting was over, the various assignments were given. Sarah, Alex, Morton and Kraus would all go down into the cave where others were already working, while the rest would stay topside and work in the labs that were being set up. The meeting adjourned, and everyone went to get lunch before starting the task at hand.


	5. Chapter 4

Alex sought out Sarah afterwards, before they were to go down into the cave.

"I was hoping we would get a chance to talk, we have a lot to catch up on." enthused Sarah.

"How long has it been?" asked Alex.

"Ten years."

"That long? I take it I don't have to ask how Rick is doing."

"I guess you heard that Animal Planet picked up his show for two more seasons. After I get back from this, he'll be off filming the new season."

"How are Will and Holly?"

"Well Will is going to be attending Berkeley this fall."

"Really?" exclaimed Alex, "Well now I feel old. Is he following in his mother's footsteps?"

"Actually, he's managed to combine both of our specialties. He's taking paleontology. We're both really proud of him." beamed Sarah.

"And Holly?"

"Well she's become your typical sullen teenager. She's really smart, really good with computers, but completely unmotivated with school work, and around the house it's like having a heckler making constant sarcastic remarks about everything we do, living there. What about you? Is there anyone special in your life yet?"

Alex let out a sigh, "No, I'm pretty much married to my work. I don't see that changing, I think I'm a little too high maintenance for a relationship." Sarah laughed at that.

"So why me?" Alex said suddenly.

"Um, what do you mean?"

"Why am I here? I'm an astrophysicist. I've been working on dark matter, and super-string theory. Alien artifacts are a little out of my league."

Sarah pondered this for a moment, "It's out of everyone's league. We have no idea what we're dealing with here. There are no reputable experts in alien technology on this planet. We needed somebody that knows something about what is possible out there. I believe, as Rick is fond of saying, that this is right in your wheelhouse."

"I guess we shall see."

"Come on, it's time for you to see this thing in person. The photos don't do this thing justice."

They walked over to the drill site. Sarah stepped into the cage elevator while Alex's mind recalled the briefing as he watched her disappear into the darkness of the drill hole. The cave is approximately 120 metres below the surface. It takes approximately 30 seconds for the cage to descend or about one minute round trip. Only one person can travel at a time, which makes any evacuation difficult in the event of sudden disaster. Air is constantly pumped in while water is extracted to keep the chamber from flooding. No more than eight people will be allowed in the chamber at any one time. Kraus and Morton joined Alex as the elevator made its return. He stepped on it, feeling it sway on his weight. He took a quick glance at Kraus' face to see if he is as nervous about this as he is with flying, but it only showed anticipation. As the elevator started to descend, Alex wished he felt as confident. This isn't the first time he's gone underground. He's been to the neutrino detector in Sudbury up in Canada, and that's two kilometres down into the Earth. For some reason, this feels different.


	6. Chapter 5

He reached bottom to a waiting Sarah, but his eyes were already fixed on The Obelisk. He stepped out of the cage and breathed, "You weren't kidding." It was so black, it almost hurt his eyes. If it wasn't for the silver diamond on the front, it would have been hard to discern its shape or even if it was a structure or an entrance to a cave. His mind wandered, thinking about how the universe radiates at a temperature of three degrees Kelvin and how the space between the stars didn't look as black as this.

"This is our workstation here, which monitors The Obelisk." It was Sarah voice breaking the spell. Alex looked at where Sarah was pointing. There were three tables next to one another with a series of monitors and computers hastily networked together. Three people were sitting there looking at the screens. On the screens there were multiple views of The Obelisk, a false colour image moving through various permutations and a couple of graphs showing the data that's being received from the various sensors. Alex took a quick glance around at his surroundings. The chamber was moderately big, roughly four metres in height and some 20 by 30 metres in width and depth. The Obelisk itself was located at one end, with a pool of water, surrounded by caution tape, at the other. There were multiple flood lamps lighting up the chamber, along with space heaters and several cameras including an elaborate one in the centre of the chamber that was no doubt a spectrometer used to record other energy radiation beyond that of visible light. There was also a fourth person who was walking in amongst the various skeletal remains, taking careful notes of the surroundings.

Sarah introduced the other people at the tables as Lt. Dan Barrow, who was handling communications, David Simon, who was the site engineer and Adrian Fenske the computer and spectrographic tech. The remaining person was Julie Mandres, a student assistant that has helped Sarah on digs in the past.

"Have you done a spectroscopic analysis of the artifact yet?" asked Alex staring at the data on the screen.

"Yes," replied Fenske without looking up, "it's very unusual. The partial diamond section is showing almost normal light reflection except no absorption lines."

"None?" exclaimed Alex incredulously.

"Sure there are strong spikes and weak spikes along the spectrum but it almost looks like it's trying to mask what it's made of."

"What about the black section."

"Ah, that's even more fascinating. It has absolutely no reflective light and virtually no emissive radiation coming from it." Fenske quickly punched up a bar graph that was almost completely flat, with each bar occasionally making a small jump up a notch, then back down. Fenske pointed at the graph. "Here we're getting an ever so slight reading in the ultraviolet. In terms of intensity I would say that your average TV remote probably outshines it, if one could see into the ultraviolet that is."

"Interesting." mused Alex lost in thought.

"Does it mean something?" asked Sarah.

"Hmmmm? Oh, I have no idea. It probably does mean something though."

"Way to put yourself out there old boy." It was Morten. He and Kraus had made their way down and were now standing beside them. "Well, I must say, when you first told me about this, I figured you had all collectively gone funny in the head. However, I must say, I am impressed, very impressed." He suddenly turned to Sarah, "Does your husband know what you do for a living?"

Sarah ignored the question, "Do you have any idea how long this may have been here?"

Morton's eyes narrowed and a look of annoyance crossed his face. "Well let's see." Morton quickly looked around the cave while rubbing his chin as if deep in thought. "Well there's the K-T boundary up there. Fairly well defined, no surprise considering where we are. So I would say it's been here anywhere between at most 250 million years to, oh let's say, last month." Morton crossed his arms and angrily stared down Sarah.

"Seriously?" replied Sarah angrily.

"Well what did you expect? Did you think I can look around and give you a precise time and day when this thing was put here? It was a stupid question! Had you asked 'Will you be able to give an approximate period when this was put here?' I would have answered 'Maybe.' And be significantly less annoyed. This thing shows no sign of decay, it's not covered in dust or soil or sediment. As I recall from the briefing, you tried to take a sample from it, and found it impervious to all means of extraction."

"We will be bringing a laser in next week." interrupted Simon.

"Thanks Scooter." sneered Morton sarcastically, "It will probably fail too. The point being is, that at best I can take some samples and do some radiological testing, which will take time I might add, and be no closer answering your original question, or even narrowing down my original timeframe."

Sarah sighed, "I actually understand the process; graduated with a Ph.D. you know. I wasn't expecting an instant answer; I was expecting a plan of attack on your part."

"Then you should have made it clearer. Perhaps you should have minored in English while you were at university." Morton glanced at The Obelisk, "I guess I will look around and see what I can dig up, literally."

"Sarah."

Alex looked over; it was Kraus squatting next to one of the skeletal remains. He was motioning to Sarah to come over.

"You found something?"

"Yes," replied Kraus, "I've been examining this skull and a couple of others here, I'm pretty certain these remains are not Amerind, they can't be Mayan."


	7. Chapter 6

Sarah pondered this for a moment, "Well we considered this possibility, are they human though?"

"Well unless aliens have somehow evolved an exact copy of a human appearance, I would say most definitely. They look African, possibly North African." Sarah looked lost in thought at this revelation, so Krause continued, "I know what you're thinking. Thor Heyerdahl."

Sarah smiled at this. Alex had to ask, "Thor Heyerdahl?"

"He was an ethnographer and adventurer." explained Sarah, "Back in '69 and '70 he launched a couple of expeditions using ancient Egyptian boat design and construction to see if it was possible for them to cross the Atlantic. They were successful in reaching Barbados on their second attempt."

"Are you saying that's how they got here?" ventured Alex.

Sarah thought about this for a second, "There has been no evidence of any ancient Egyptian cultural or linguistic influences in the Americas. There has been no DNA evidence to suggest an African origin. So no, these people did not venture here, they were brought here."

"Though it does raise the question of how these people got _here._" contributed Kraus, "It seems unlikely that they came in through there," he nodded in the direction of the water pool, "and there are no other entrances into this cave."

"Well none that are obvious." added Sarah.

"Well I would like to start moving these remains to the surface for further examination. I will try to get some exact measurements and hopefully be able to extract some DNA to get a better idea where these people came from. And maybe, just maybe, if we're lucky find out what killed them. I could use your helper monkey to help me out with this."

"I do wish you would stop calling her that…"

"Dr. Marshall!" It was Morton kneeling on the ground near the Obelisk. "I think I might be able to narrow that time frame for you a bit."

"Do tell."

"Well this cave, I'm guessing, formed around one million years ago. The erosion patterns on the ground run underneath this thing. If this was buried, and the cave eroded around it, I would be seeing a radiating erosion pattern around it, and I don't see that here. So this thing had to have been placed here….oh!" Morton tried to get up and placed his hand on the Obelisk to steady himself. He then suddenly drew his hand back in surprise.

Alex laughed. "I bet that was pretty cold to touch, uhn?"

Morton just stared at the Obelisk. "No, it just felt….odd."

Alex furrowed his brow and looked back at Simon who smiled back at him brightly, "Oh, it's perfectly safe to touch."

"Well that's good to know." groused Morton.

"It's just that if you keep your hands on it for a long period of time, your fingers will get a little cold." offered Simon.

"Hmmm." Alex stroked his chin deep in thought. "It must be powered by passive energy absorption. Might be why it's down here."

"Powered? To do what?" asked Simon.

"I believe that is the next question on the agenda." Alex went up to the Obelisk to touch it. He reached out, and his fingers glided across the surface. "Has anyone ever read _2001: A Space Odyssey_?"

"You mean it's like the Monolith?" It was Fenske's voice. "We've done measurements of it; there is nothing remarkable about it. There are no interesting ratios, no interesting number correlations. It stands roughly 3.11 metres tall, it's roughly 1.76 metres at the base, it's…"

"What I'm trying to say," said Alex as he turned around to look at Fenske, who was staring straight at the computer monitor. Alex found that slightly unnerving. "What I'm trying to say is that this surface is completely frictionless, like the Monolith."

"Frictionless you say?" It was Morton now looking lost in thought. His brow furrowed and moved quickly over to the ice coolers. He picked out a bottle of ice tea and a bottle of water, studied them for a second and then went behind the Obelisk. Alex followed behind him and was surprised to see him slowly emptying out the ice tea bottle.

"What are you doing?" asked Alex.

"A little experiment."

"Alex, can I get your help here for a minute?" It was Sarah's voice; she was standing by a cave wall, slowly rubbing her hand on it.

"Sure, what is it?"

"I need you to shine your flashlight upwards at a 45 degree angle towards me from this point." Sarah pointed to a spot halfway down to the floor.

"Okay."

"Julie found some carvings on the wall. They are badly eroded and I need to get some better contrast."

"What kind of carvings?"

Sarah didn't answer right away. Her brow furrowed in concentration. It was as if she was making sure her eyes weren't playing tricks on her.

"They are Egyptian hieroglyphs."


	8. Chapter 7

Alex was excited, "Can you read it? Does it give any clue about what happened to these people? How they got here?"

Sarah shook her head, "No, it's too faded. I'm only seeing bits and pieces at the moment." Sarah moved away and motioned to Alex that he could put the flashlight away. "I'm going to have to go topside and get some paper. I'll try to make a rubbing. It might bring out details I can't see in this light. Don't touch anything while I'm gone."

Alex was taken aback by the last comment, but then chuckled. Sarah's husband Rick was widely known for his sense of humour; it's what made him such a popular television personality. However Sarah had quite a dry wit herself that was unfortunately overshadowed by her hyper-extrovert husband. Alex knew she had to be kidding, what was the point of bringing him here if he didn't get to touch stuff?

Alex went back over to Morton. The geologist was observing a trickle of the ice tea coming out from underneath the Obelisk. He then went behind the Obelisk and quickly poured out the contents of the water bottle. A small gush of water flowed around and under the artifact. Morton than went down on his stomach and looked to be attempting to peek underneath the object of their collective fascination. Alex decided to join him.

Morton looked at him, "Well I proved one thing."

"What is that?"

"My original assessment was correct. Water doesn't ignore this object. In sufficient quantities, it will flow around it, like any other object. This proves that it was placed here after the cave was formed. Unfortunately with a frictionless surface, a small trickle of water just flows underneath uninterrupted, leaving normal erosion patterns. I was hoping I could narrow the time frame by analyzing those patterns, but unfortunately that is a dead end."

Alex nodded and then smiled, "Well you also proved something else."

Morton gave a surprised look, "What is that?"

"Whatever is holding this thing in place isn't the result of it being attached to the rocky surface."

Morton looked back at the flow patterns of the water with wide-eyed astonishment. "Of course, how could I have missed that? If this thing is just sitting on the surface, with a frictionless bottom, they should be able to push this all over the place! What the hell is holding it in place?"

"That is another very good question." replied Alex. He was gaining new respect for Prof. Morton. Despite being rough around the edges, he had a keen intellect and a strong sense of curiosity.

Morton moved to his knees to get up. He paused and looked the ceiling of the cave for a few seconds. Alex could detect an almost indiscernible change in his expression. Morton looked around the cave and seemed to grow more excited. "I wonder…?" Alex could hear him breathe.

"Thought of something?" pried Alex.

"You remember in the briefing that they said they removed all the speleothem in the cave in order to better study the Obelisk?"

"It would help if I knew what a speleothem is."

This seem to derail Morton a bit, "They are cave formations; stalactites, stalagmites that sort of thing."

"Ah yes, you decried it as 'wanton vandalism' as I recall."

"Yes, yes," waved Morton, trying to get control of the conversation again, "it was unfortunate but necessary in light of what was found here. Now it stands to reason that whoever placed this thing here might have done the same thing."

Alex let it sink in for a couple of seconds. "If you can find some remnant of an older…er…cave formation that had been removed previously, you can do radiological testing on it in order to date it?"

"Possibly. I would have to find evidence of it first, which won't be easy. But I can also do testing on the speleothem that they removed from here."

"With the oldest sample being likely the date near the time the Obelisk arrived here."

"Exactly. It's going to take a lot grunt work, but the hardest part has already been done for me. In fact…" Morton pointed his flashlight at a portion of the cave floor a couple of feet away. "…I think this proves my hypothesis. You see this?"

Alex peered at where Morton was pointing. There was a ring on the floor where a stalagmite was removed. It kind of reminded him of tree rings. Morton explained, "If you can notice, this remnant is overlapping a much fainter older ring."

Alex could barely make it out, it almost blended in with the natural variations of the limestone surface, but he knew what it meant. "Just like moon craters, newer craters overlapping older ones."

"See? You already are a better geologist than most of my students." laughed Morton. "Now if excuse me, I'm going to head topside and get some equipment."

When Morton left, Alex turned his attention towards the Obelisk. He once again put his fingers on it and felt them glide across the surface. He moved from the black area to the silver area but couldn't feel any variation in the different surfaces, no change between the two, it was perfectly seamless. In a moment of inspiration he decided to place his palm dead centre of the diamond. Nothing happened; it was the same feel of a frictionless surface as before. He then glided his fingers from the centre back to his left…

He felt it. To make sure it wasn't his imagination he moved his fingers back right. It was definitely there, in the black area right at the left point of the diamond, he found, for lack of a better word, a notch. He placed his face right next to the Obelisk to see if he could see any shadow cast of the notch, but then felt foolish. The way this thing can absorb light, there was no chance to see a shadow, so this notch was effectively invisible. He once again put his finger on it, perhaps notch wasn't the right word, it seemed more like a small circular area where there was suddenly surface friction. He pressed on it gently, then with more force. Nothing happened. He decided to explore the top most point of the diamond, it too had a similar notch, he pressed that too, still nothing happened. Finally he tried the right most point, and like the other points it too had a notch. Like the others he pressed it….

"What the hell did you just do?"


	9. Chapter 8

It was Fenske's voice. _What did just happen?_ Alex knew something had changed but it took his brain a few seconds to realize that the silver diamond shape was gone. It wasn't just gone; in fact he could now see inside of the Obelisk, it was now open. The interior stood in almost sharp contrast to the exterior. While the interior was dark with black surfaces, it didn't seem as dark as its exterior. The surfaces inside reflected light, and lacked the unreal quality of the outside.

"I'm getting spikes across almost the entire electromagnetic spectrum!" intoned Fenske excitedly.

Inside Alex could see some sort of pedestal or console with what looked like crystals sticking out of it and… At first Alex thought he was seeing things. He looked inside, then craned his head around to look outside towards the back of Obelisk, and then looked back inside.

Simon walked over to Alex, "How did you open it?"

Alex ignored the question, "It's bigger on the inside than on the outside!" he breathed excitedly.

"Just like the Tardis?" It was Fenske's voice again; it sounded half question, half statement.

_Tardis?_ The word was familiar to Alex, but he couldn't immediately place where he heard it before. He turned around to face Fenske, and Fenske in turn was still staring straight into the computer screens. From where he was standing Alex could tell Fenske was looking at an image of himself and Simon in front of the Obelisk.

"From _Doctor Who_." Fenske clarified.

"That is absolutely creepy." whispered Alex.

"No kidding." Replied Simon softly, clearly understanding what Alex was referring to.

Alex and Simon started to walk towards Fenske. Alex spoke, "Ah yes, I suppose it is like the Tardis. It certainly explains why we haven't been able to move it."

"How so?" asked Simon.

"Well," explained Alex, "part of the Obelisk exists outside of this universe, to put it in layman's terms. Or perhaps it would be more accurate to say that it's entangled into the fabric of the universe. As a consequence we can't move it any more than we can move a girder that's been anchored in 20 feet of cement. Quite remarkable really, we've always suspected there were more dimensions and structure to universe then we could see or measure, but this is the first tangible proof of it."

"But in _Doctor Who_ they were able move the Tardis all over the place with ease!" protested Fenske.

"Why don't you review that statement in your head and see if you can find your error in it." chided Alex. "Now what kind of readings are we getting from inside this thing?"

Fenske sullenly typed some keystrokes and a graph showed up on one screen, then with a few more keystrokes a false colour image of the interior could be seen on another. Alex stared at the second image. The interior was well lit, but apart from the console, it was barren. He then turned his attention to the graph. It was no longer flat but showing small spikes from radio waves all the up to x-rays, nothing really significant though except for one large spike in the ultraviolet range. Alex pointed it out.

"I take it that's what the false colour image is reading?"

"Uh, yes, the strongest reading we're getting is in the near UV range."

"Now why would it be pumping out so much UV?" questioned Simon.

"Good question." replied Alex, "Perhaps a form of sterilization to prevent alien microbes from contaminating other environments?" Alex walked to where Lt. Barrow was sitting. On a screen in front of him was a webcam shot of the two Colonels watching intently the proceedings in the cave. Suddenly Sarah's head popped into view.

"I thought I told you not to touch anything?"


	10. Chapter 9

"I thought you were kidding."

Sarah let out a sigh, "If I had known you were going to be able to open it, I wouldn't have been. Look, I'm going to head back down, don't touch anything else. This time I mean it!" With that, Sarah disappeared from view.

"Now Dr. Boynton, how…" began Col. Brock before he was interrupted by Alex.

"I know what you're going to ask, but before I answer I want you guys to get Dr. Maheshwari. We have some questions regarding the UV readings we're getting."

Col. Price motioned to somebody off camera. He then turn back and acknowledged that the doctor was on his way. Alex then gave a brief synopsis of how he opened the Obelisk.

"Can you reverse it? Can you close it?" questioned Col. Brock.

"Possibly," replied Alex "it's either going to be the same sequence or the reverse sequence. However, I would rather not try it before we've had a chance to explore inside. It would be pretty frustrating if we close it and find we can't open it again."

Both Colonels nodded in agreement just as Dr. Maheshwari entered into view.

"Dr. Maheshwari," greeted Alex "are you receiving the same readings up there as we are getting down here?"

A technician in the command tent directed the doctor to which computer screen to look at. "Ah yes, thank you. Yes, I'm getting the readings up here just fine."

"Good." replied Alex "As you no doubt notice, there seems to be a fair amount of UV radiation coming from the interior of the Obelisk. We were wondering if it's possible that it's some sort of sterilization process to protect against alien microbes."

Maheshwari studied graphical data for a good minute, occasionally using a mouse to presumably bring up some other data before finally responding, "No, it doesn't seem likely. There is a dramatic drop-off at 300 nm, which beyond that point is the UVC radiation which is normally what is used for sterilization. While there is some sterilization with UVB, the irradiance levels I'm seeing here would probably allow for most microbial life forms to quickly adapt."

"Is it perhaps some sort of fault that's developed with the Obelisk?" questioned Simon out loud seemingly to nobody in particular.

"I can't answer that." replied Maheshwari.

Alex furrowed his brow. An idea was starting to percolate in his brain. He stared at the Obelisk false colour image, while remember something Fenske said about 'if one could see into the ultraviolet'. A hypothesis formed…

"I think the aliens who built this can see into the ultraviolet." announced Alex.

"I think that could be plausible," agreed Maheshwari, "there are many species here on Earth that can do that. It would seem highly likely that a completely alien species would have that ability."

Simon spoke next, "I just have one further question. How safe is it for us if we go in there?"

"Well the irradiance levels are not that intense. You're probably safe for a couple of hours, but if you're going to be in there all day, I would suggest some sunscreen."

There was a clang as the cage elevator reached bottom. Everyone turned to the noise. Normally the noise was ignored as everybody became used to the constant coming and going of various people. This time with the anticipation of Dr. Marshall returning, the clang caught the attention of the research team. Alex thanked Dr. Maheshwari and turned his attention to Sarah. He quickly briefed her on what they learned about the UV radiation and the working theory about the aliens.

Sarah took this all in and nodded. "Okay, here is what we're going to do. We're going to keep exploration of the interior limited to two hours for now. I want a camera in there connected by cable to record the research. I want to make sure that whatever you touch or find is well documented."

"We're going to need to bring in a couple of spots to light the interior, after all, we can't see in ultraviolet." interjected Simon.

"Good point set that up as well. Both you and Alex will have the first shift. Make sure you both have headsets on and in constant communication with us and the control centre upside."

At that moment the elevator clanged, and Prof. Morton stepped off whistling some John Philip Sousa march. He stopped suddenly and gaped at the now open Obelisk. His eyes suddenly narrowed at Alex in mock anger, "You just had to steal my thunder, didn't you?"


	11. Chapter 10

Sarah glared at him, "Don't you have some samples to collect?" she growled.

"Do think that it might be pointless? You're just going to find the 'Made in Pangaea' label and the manufacturing date making all my efforts in vain."

"Just humor me. There is no guarantee…" A slow smirk started to form on Morton's face, and Sarah let out an exasperated gasp and waved at him, "Just collect your samples."

As Morton moved off, he pointed to his eyes with two fingers, and then moved those 180° towards Alex, before giving a wink and smile.

Sarah just shook her head in annoyance, and then asked everyone to get to work. Sarah moved off towards the cave carvings, while Simon went to the communications station to order down a couple more lights and another camera. Alex put on his headset and approached the entrance of the Obelisk. He paused for a few seconds to ponder the enormity of what he was about to do as well as feeling some trepidation that the Obelisk might not want him to enter. He shook his head at that thought; if the Obelisk had such security features, he probably wouldn't have been able to open it so easily. With that, he inhaled sharply and held his breath, and ducked his head as he crossed the threshold.

He let out his breath. He felt slightly disappointed. He knew he just crossed into a structure that exists mostly outside of this universe, yet there was no more sensation than that of entering a room from another room. The chamber was unremarkable, rectangular, roughly the same size as the cave that it was in. It looked about 20 metres high and wide and about 40 metres deep, all a uniform black in colour. There was no obvious source for the ultraviolet radiation. The only indication that it was being emitted was that parts of his shirt fluoresced, much like being under the influence of a blacklight. The only item in the room was what appeared to be a console which was about 10 metres from the entrance. He slowly approached it, and then remembered something.

"Testing, testing, one, two, three." Alex waited for a response, but heard nothing. "Hello, anybody reading me? Lt. Barrow? Col. Price? Anybody?" There was not even static. At first he thought his battery was dead, but a little red light glowed indicating it was working. It was completely voice activated, so there were no switches he needed to flip…

Suddenly he realized the problem, and felt stupid for not seeing it beforehand. He walked back to the entrance and called to Sarah. "We have a problem."

Sarah was attaching a sheet of paper to the cave wall. She looked back, "What's wrong?"

"The headsets are not going to work. This thing absorbs radio waves; there is no way we can talk to one another once we are inside."

"What about the camera? That won't work either?"

Simon interjected, "I plan on using a cable to connect it to the work stations out here. It shouldn't be a problem." Alex nodded in the affirmative.

"Well I guess we have to make do, continue." replied Sarah.

Alex took off the headset, placed it on a workstation table, and then headed back inside. He walked over to the consol. It was roughly the size of an average computer work station angled at 30°. It was composed of elongated hexagonal crystals arranged in two different patterns. The left pattern was like that of a spoked wheel, with six spokes of six crystals with an outer circle of 12 crystals. The right pattern was simply 12 rows of six crystals; however there were six empty spots of missing crystals in the grid. Alex studied the consol. It stood roughly the right height for a human to operate, but it obviously worked on some base 6 system. He looked back at the diamond shaped doorway, and considered how he had to duck to enter inside. He pondered alien eyes that could see into the ultraviolet. He tried to picture what these beings that constructed this could look like, but his imagination failed him. Alex went back to the doorway and called out to Sarah.

"What is it?"

Alex spoke in low tones, "I think I know somebody that might be of use to us. There is a Prof. Silas Swallow at Arizona State University who specializes in astrobiology and works with NASA in the search for extraterrestrial life. We might get a clearer picture of what these aliens might have looked like."

Sarah nodded, "Okay, I will look into it. However is it something that is important?"

Alex shrugged, "Possibly. If we had some inkling of what they might have looked like, we might get a sense of the purpose and logic of the Obelisk and how it works."

Sarah nodded again, "Okay that makes sense. I will make a call."

"Thank you." and with that Alex headed back inside to look at the console. He noted that each crystal had some variation in colour with both the wheel and grid arranged in a type of colour sequence…. Alex absentmindedly touched one of the crystals causing many of them to light up. He jumped back in surprise. The wheel was almost completely lit up save for one of the crystals in the centre, while the grid remained dark. The colour variation was more pronounced in the lighted section, with it entirely in the green-blue-violet half of the spectrum.

Alex looked sheepishly out towards the entrance way. He saw Simon pop his head in.

"Sarah wants me to tell you to stop touching things."


	12. Chapter 11

Alex slightly shook his head in disbelief. Simon picked up on that, "Fenske was whining about some spike in the energy output of the electromagnetic spectrum, and Sarah immediately assumed you were responsible. I'm almost ready to bring equipment in if you can hold off touching stuff for a minute."

Alex only put his hands up and backed further away from the console in response.

Simon brought in the first yellow halogen lamp that was attached to a tripod stand and trailing a power cable behind. Simon quickly set the stand down, pointed the lamp down slightly, and then raised the stand so the lamp was pointing directly at the console before turning it on. The light brought much needed relief from the gloominess of the interior for about two seconds before the room became brighter. The sudden increase in light level startled both Alex and Simon, who both looked up and noticed that the ceiling was now emitting a soft white light.

"Now you do it?" grumbled Simon.

"Turn off the light and see what happens." suggested Alex.

Simon complied, turning off the lamp. The ceiling continued to glow.

"Fascinating, I wonder…" trailed off Alex. He left the Obelisk and walked over to Fenske's table, peered over his shoulder at the energy output graph on the screen.

"The UV energy output has almost become negligible." uttered a surprised Fenske, echoing Alex's thoughts.

"Can you punch up past readings and compare to current readings?" asked Alex.

"Of course, how far back do you want?"

"Five minutes should do."

A second graph popped up on the screen next to the first one, showing at first glance a virtually identical wave. Alex observed it closely, letting loose a small hum of intrigue at what he was seeing.

"What's up?" It was Sarah's voice from behind him. Alex studied the side-by-side graphs for a few seconds more, double checking his observations before turning around to talk to Sarah.

"It would appear that this artifact might be a little more user friendly than I anticipated."

"How so?"

"Well," began Alex, "we don't have to worry about UV exposure anymore. The frequency of the energy output has shifted downward from the UV range to the visible light spectrum. Apparently when Simon turned on the lamp inside, The Obelisk analyzed the light it emitted and adjusted its own emissions accordingly to be compatible with our own visual range. It would seem that the builders of this artifact anticipated that it would outlast their own existence and made it adaptable for any future species to use, whoever they may be."

Simon, who had joined them and stood just behind Sarah's left shoulder nodded; seemingly understanding what Alex just said. Sarah, on the other hand, looked a little uncertain and appeared like she was going to say something, but Fenske spoke up instead.

"How do we know that the whole purpose of this thing is to get us to turn it on and destroy ourselves?"

Now it was Alex turn to look uncertain as he pondered the question. How can he be certain it isn't a doomsday device? However, much to Alex's surprise, Sarah spoke up.

"I can assure you, it isn't."

Alex looked at her quizzically. "How can you be so certain?"

"Well I'm not quite ready to say, other than the rubbings I did on the wall managed to bring out some hidden detail. I still want to study it a bit more, but I will fill you all in when we debrief tonight. Now the question I have is: Can you get The Obelisk working?"

"Uh…" Alex's confidence failed him. He had no idea on how to even begin figuring out the purpose of The Obelisk, let alone getting it operational. An analogy sprung into his mind, he was like an ancient human suddenly confronted with a modern automobile. All he has been able to do so far was open the door and cause the interior light to come on, he isn't anywhere close to identifying the ignition or it's value…

Simon broke the suddenly uncomfortable silence, "Is there some accelerated timeline to make this operational that we need to know about?"

Sarah appeared taken aback by the question, "Um, no. We can take as long as we need to. All our contracts run for a month with options to renew on a monthly basis. If we get to the point that we can't move any further with our studies, then we take all the information we've gathered and publish our findings with what we got."

"Well then, I would suggest we use trial and error."

"I don't think that's…" Alex tried to interject.

Simon wouldn't be deterred, "Look, this thing is obviously a machine of some sort. Alien esthetics aside, it still has to function in a logical manner within the parameters of universal laws of physics. Like all machines it operates with three things: control, power, action. It clearly has power, we've found the control, all we have to do now is systematically work out it's function to establish action."

Alex wasn't convinced, "I think that would be a very dangerous course of action. We're children who may have found a box of matches. That situation never ends well."

Simon shook his head, "Relax. You said yourself that this is user friendly. This is a very advanced piece of technology. I have no doubt that the builders of this thing installed multiple foolproof safe guards to prevent any potentially harmful action to occur."

Alex sighed heavily, "The problem with foolproof is that the universe has a habit of creating better fools that find new ways around it." Alex then turned, "Sarah, I recommend that we wait until Professor Swallow has had a chance to examine the artifact, and then proceed with caution."

Sarah looked back and forth between Alex and Simon appearing to carefully weigh the two viewpoints. After some long seconds of consideration she finally spoke, "I will still contact Professor Swallow, but it will take at minimum three days to get him here, probably longer. In the meantime I see no reason not to proceed with David's plan. Either we advance or we get stuck at another roadblock. I don't believe the artifact was designed to be a weapon or is inherently dangerous. David, you take lead, Alex you observe, okay?"

Simon nodded and headed back towards the Obelisk, but Alex had one last question for Sarah, "Is there something you're not telling us? You seem to know more about the Obelisk than anybody."

"As I said earlier, I rather not say. I still need to confirm what I found, and the last thing I want to do is lead you down a potential blind alley. I prefer you look at this with fresh eyes and fresh perspective."

"Okay." Alex wasn't satisfied, but he felt he had no choice. He's known her long enough to trust her, but couldn't help but feel that her judgment was impaired in this case either due to fatigue, or perhaps some other issues. As he walked back into the Obelisk, he couldn't help but feel a growing disquiet over what they were about to do.


	13. Chapter 12

Once he was inside The Obelisk, he noticed Simon standing off to one side studying the consol. Simon looked back, "I'm going to go set the video feed up, should only take 10 minutes, and then start the examination." he informed Alex.

Alex only nodded in response. As Simon left, his mind turned back to the day's events. Was he sulking because of jealousy over taking a backseat to Mr. Simon? He recalled his uncertainty over whether he could even contribute to this project. It then occurred to him that everything he accomplished today was out of pure luck, and that his main contributions have been in interpretation of data. If he was truly honest with himself, he would have to admit that it makes sense that an engineer would be better suited to decode the workings of an alien machine. Perhaps he…

"Alex?"

Alex was stirred out of his reverie and looked up. It was Simon. At least he looked like Simon, but there was something odd about him, that he couldn't quite place a finger on…

"We're inside a pylon." stated Simon, looking around.

_A what? Pylon?_ Those little orange cones he sees in road construction suddenly popped into head. The imagery didn't make any sense.

"This is TAO-1 isn't it?"

"Tau-wun?" Alex struggled to make sense of what Simon was saying.

"Uh, never mind. I'll just go…back to setting up the camera." Simon headed back towards the entrance. Before leaving he turned back towards Alex. He looked like he wanted to say something but was unsure whether he should or not. Finally he spoke, "Whatever you do, make sure you don't let me put the wrong crystal in the wrong hole." With that he turned and left.

Alex just gaped at the now empty entrance. _What the devil was that all about?_ wondered Alex. It was about a minute later that Simon re-entered The Obelisk carrying a tripod and camera. He put the camera down and calmly set up the tripod, adjusting it to the height and position he wanted it in.

Alex looked at him quizzically, "Did you just change your clothes?"

Simon gave Alex a double take, "What? No, I've been wearing these all day." Simon then proceeded to attach the camera to the tripod.

_Is he messing with me?_ Alex was certain that the clothes Simon was wearing now were different from the clothes he had on just a minute ago. He decided on a different tack, "What's a tau-wun?"

Simon didn't even bother to look at Alex, "I don't know. What did tau win?"

_He MUST be messing with me._ Alex glared at Simon as he briefly left and brought in some cables. He then saw it…

"Bloody hell!" exclaimed Alex, and hurried out of The Obelisk. He looked around the cave, nothing seemed out of order. He could see Sarah, Morton and Krause working at different parts of the cave, Lt. Barrow and Fenske at the work stations. There was no one else. Alex quickly went around to the back of The Obelisk, but nobody else was there.

Alex hurried over to the communications station. "Lieutenant, did any one just leave here?"

Lt. Barrow just shook his head, "No. The last person to leave was Miss Mandres, and she left about five minutes ago. Why? What's wrong?"

Alex couldn't believe it, but there was no doubt about it. "We have an intruder."

"What? It's not possible!"

"Rewind and sync up the surveillance tapes and I will show you." instructed Alex. At this point Sarah had joined them to see what the commotion was all about.

The surveillance images rewound a couple of minutes, before moving forward again at normal speed. The main image showed Simon leaving The Obelisk, glancing at the camera before walking to the back of the artifact. "That's just Mr. Simon." observed Lt. Barrow.

"No," corrected Alex, "that's Mr. Simon right there." Alex pointed to a second image on another screen that clearly showed Simon unpacking the camera equipment. Lt. Barrow backed up the images to the other Simon coming out of The Obelisk and freeze framed it with him glancing at the camera. "Whoever that is," declared Alex, "looks very much like our Mr. Simon but he's wearing different clothes, has longer hair, and has a couple days growth of stubble."

"That's not possible." breathed Sarah, "Did he do anything while inside? Or say anything?"

"All he did was talk to me." answered Alex, "He knew who I was, said something about pylons and 'tau-wun' and then asked me not to let him put the wrong crystal in the wrong hole."

"So where did him come from?" questioned Sarah, "And more importantly, where did he go?"

"Hey guys!" came a voice from behind them, it was Simon, "I've got the video feed set up and I'm ready to go." When he didn't get a response he joined the group and peered around them at the monitors in an effort to see what was holding everyone's attention.

"Hey!" he shouted in surprise, "That's me!"


	14. Chapter 13

"No," corrected Alex, "it's only someone that looks like you."

"But…"

Before Simon could continue, Fenske interrupted, "Whoever that is, he ain't human."

Both Morton and Kraus dropped what they were doing and joined the group, while Alex moved over to study the data that Fenske was looking at. "Is this a false colour infrared image?" he asked.

"Yes it is." confirmed Fenske, "As you can see, the intruder seems to have almost no heat signature."

Alex peered at the frozen image. The fake Simon was coloured in indigos and black, while in the background he could make out his own silhouette bathed in reds and oranges.

"Now let's see what he is made of…" continued Fenske as he typed furiously on his keyboard bringing up various graphs. "Oh! This can't be right…"

Alex studied the graphs. "No elements identified…" he said out loud, "…energy emissions…mostly visible light…some x-rays…high gauss reading…"

"It basically says he doesn't exist!" exclaimed Fenske.

Alex smiled at that. "Obviously he exists, what I think you mean to say is that he isn't composed of matter." He then mused at some of the data he was seeing, "X-rays; could be an indication of some exotic particles…"

"Life can't be composed of energy." countered Fenske.

"True, but I don't think we're dealing with a life form, but a hologram."

An audible hubbub of disbelief erupted from the small group. "It would explain how he got in and out so easily without anyone noticing." observed Lt. Barrow.

"Was it created by The Obelisk?" it was Kraus that posed the question.

"That would be a logical assumption. We certainly lack the technology to make something that mimics reality with such precision." Alex's face clouded with uncertainty, "Then why did it produce an image of Mr. Simon that was somewhat different from what he actually looks like?"

"Look guys…"

"It would seem to me," ventured Kraus, "that The Obelisk might have used some method other than visual. Perhaps it took a DNA sample or reading of our Mr. Simon and extrapolated an image from there."

Alex nodded at the hypothesis, it seemed basically sound. "Now I would assume that the purpose would be for communication, but what it said to me didn't seem to make a lot of sense."

"Well assuming the builders had a very alien syntax, perhaps The Obelisk is still working out our language." suggested Morton.

"Guys…"

"Or perhaps there's been some degradation in its programming causing a bit error that's causing a cascade failure." put forth Fenske.

"So it was saying one thing but wanted to mean something else?" asked Alex.

Fenske nodded in the affirmative.

"Are we saying that The Obelisk is intelligent?" questioned Sarah.

"If by intelligent, you mean self-aware," replied Fenske, "then not necessarily. It could just be a very sophisticated UI."

"UI? Oh, 'user interface', never mind." smiled Sarah awkwardly.

"Guys, can I point something out?" it was a frustrated Simon, who for the past couple of minutes was trying to get word in edgewise. Having finally gotten everyone's attention he continued, "That guy is wearing my shirt…and possibly my jeans."

"So?" It came out more condescending than Alex wanted it to.

"Let me try to explain. You see that stain on the sleeve?" Everyone peered at a black mark on the left sleeve. "That's from me changing a toner cartridge in my office printer. Those white spots on the lower back? From when I was splashed by bleach on a job site two years ago. Ruined a brand new pair of jeans. That mustard stain? Uh, well, I can't recall when that happened…" Simon paused for a moment and took a breath before continuing, "Anyway, the point is that that's my shirt, which currently sits in a dresser drawer back home….in Houston."

It took Alex several moments for the significance of the Simon's revelation to sink in. There was quiet conversation taking place that Alex tuned out as he turned and stared at the still frozen image of the fake Simon. His mind tried to work it out. It was seemingly a cosmic paradox. Finding the artifact was a remarkable event. Interacting with an energy-based doppelganger was also a remarkable event. The odds of two remarkable events occurring independent of one another in the same area was astronomical. The two events had to be linked, but Alex was stumped on how they could be. He took a quick sideways glance at Simon, who was paying attention to a conversation that was taking place to his left. One idea occurred to Alex, but he immediately dismissed it. It was too outlandish, the stuff of science fiction. He turned back to the monitor. _Could it be that The Obelisk had been monitoring us beforehand? _ _Unlikely_, thought Alex, but it leads him to another thought. _Perhaps The Obelisk has tapped into the internet, looking up information on each of us. Perhaps it pulled the image of Simon from a Facebook page or…_

"Alex. Alex!"

Sarah voice pulled him away from his thoughts, "Hmmm, what?"

"Col. Brock is offering to send an armed soldier down in case the intruder returns."

It took a couple of seconds for Alex to mentally switch gears to ponder the new problem at hand before he could respond. "I don't think it would be necessary. The intruder made no threats, veiled or otherwise, made no aggressive moves. Besides, it's a hologram or at least hologram-like. It can't hurt us and we certainly couldn't hurt him. Bullets would just pass through him."

Sarah turned back to the image of the two Colonels and informed them that they won't need any armed security. She returned her gaze back to Alex, "Shall we continue with the examination, or shall we call it a day?"

"Well it's ultimately up to Mr. Simon here, but this incident shouldn't affect the examination. In fact I for one would love for it to continue just for the possibility that the intruder might return. Questioning it might yield some important information."

"I'm all set up and ready to go. I think we're close to a major breakthrough. I want to continue." added Simon.

Sarah smiled, looked at her watch and spoke, "Okay then we will continue. We have two more hours before we hand it off to Team 2 and then we will debrief and have supper. If there are no questions, let's get back to work." And with that Alex and Simon headed back into The Obelisk.


	15. Chapter 14

Simon first checked that the camera was functioning, and when he was satisfied that it was he moved over to the console. Alex positioned himself by the camera so he could observe Simon's actions. Simon's first action was to turn to the camera and start narrating his every move. He first touched one of the grid crystals with no effect. He then touched the unlit wheel crystal which remained dark. His next move was to systematically touch each grid crystal, but not one reacted to his contact.

"I'm starting to think this thing only likes you," joked Simon.

Simon took out one of the grid crystals and briefly studied it. The crystal appeared to be a dark indigo in colour, hexagonal with points at both ends, roughly 20 centimetres in length and 5 centimetres in width. He gently placed it back into its slot. He then proceeded to remove the unlit wheel crystal to look at it. It was the same shape and size as the indigo crystal but had a deep emerald green colour to it.

"Ah!"

"Found something?" asked Alex.

"The slot in the wheel section is snugger than the slot in grid section. I think this section here," said Simon pointing to the row of unlit crystals on the right "is nothing more than storage holders for extra crystals. It is this section here," he said pointing to the lit crystals on the left "that's the control surface."

Simon went back to staring at the crystal with intense interest. He turned his back to Alex and spoke, "I'm betting this isn't even a crystal. It may look like a crystal but I suspect it's a data storage unit and powerful microprocessor. I love to see this thing under an electron microscope."

"I thought Fenske was the main computer guy here," Alex said in an off-hand manner.

"Adrian? He's actually not our main computer guy. That guy actually works on Team 3. He's a bit of night owl. Quite brilliant but somewhat insane. Makes our little Adrian look like a sea of stability. You'll probably get to meet him tonight at dinner. Now Adrian is very good with computers. He works for a company that makes various spectroscopes, including that baby out there," Simon pointed to the machine sitting in the middle of the cave. "Believe it or not, it's worth $10,000. Adrian wrote the operating system program of the machine and computer program that gives us all the graphs and false colour images."

Alex just stared at Simon, secretly wondering why he had to say anything at all.

Simon continued, "As for me, I'm not in the same league as those guys. My company works in the resource management sector, doing engineering for mining, oil drilling, logging that sort of thing. However I did do some consulting work for NASA who were interested in designing machines and habitats for mining on the Moon, asteroids, Mars, that sort of thing. Real pie-in-the-sky stuff even for NASA. Probably will never see the light of day, but because of that I became real interested in computers, their designs and their capabilities. However, that work has led me to working on a project that will hopefully come to fruition in about five to ten years. I'm currently designing an underwater oil drilling platform. I know real James Cameron, eh? I see a lot of potential in it."

Alex thought the last bit was interesting, but he didn't want to let on that he thought so, lest Simon would just keep on talking. Alex decided to change the subject, "Any idea why that crystal wasn't lighting up?"

Simon shook his head, "Nope. I thought perhaps I could see some sort of obvious flaw. Perhaps if….Oh!"

Simon placed the crystal back into its slot when it suddenly lit up. The console hummed to life. Alex could feel a pressure wave hit him a fraction of a second before there was an explosion of light at the back half of the room that quick expanded into a sphere some 15 metres in diameter. Within seconds an image emerged into focus and solidified. Alex walked towards the console, the perspective of the image changed as he moved. He could clearly see that it was an alien landscape. It was nighttime but the barren landscape was lit up from the light of three moons that more or less lined up just above the horizon, each showing a waning gibbous phase. Two of the moons appeared roughly in perspective size to that of the Earth's moon, the third moon was very large in appearance. Alex could easily make out impact craters on its surface, but there were also misty areas, suggesting at least a thin atmosphere.

Alex moved next to Simon, "How did you get it to activate?"

Simon was rapidly looking between the image, the console, and back to the image, "I have no idea. Perhaps it wasn't sitting in the slot secure enough to make a connection…"

"Maybe you rotated it, and put it in differently. Maybe you should…"

Before Alex could continue, they heard Fenske's voice at the doorway, "Guys, what did you just do? We…What the hell is that?"

"Well that got you out of your chair," Alex said under his breath. He then walked towards the doorway, "What happened?"

Fenske motioned to somebody before answering, "There was an EM pulse. If it was any stronger, it would have destroyed all the computers."

Sarah poked her head around the doorway entrance and gave a facial expression of mild surprise, "Well that's something. What is it?"

"We don't know yet," replied Alex. He then heard Simon's voice from behind him "Was any data lost?"

"We don't know yet, the computers are still booting up."

"How big of a pulse was it? My phone is still working, and I can see from here that the camera is still operational. By rights then both of those should have been fried being so close to the source of the pulse." After hearing what Simon said, Alex took a quick glance at his phone. It had no signal, naturally, but it still worked.

Fenske just shook his head "Without functional computers, I can't answer that. The Obelisk acts as natural shield so you should've received a much bigger hit."

"Guys," said an exasperated Sarah, "can we focus on the alien landscape that's now in the middle of the room instead of being techheads for one minute?"

"Isn't that what you hired us for?" Fenske received a death glare from Sarah, so he made a quick exit "I'll go check on the computers…"

Alex smiled at the exchange and turned around to look at the sphere. He could see a fourth smaller moon slowly moving into view. It moved fast enough that he could see its phase slowly shifting. It started to pass in front of the large moon. Clearly it wasn't a static shot. "It must be in real time," he said out loud.

"Is it an actual gateway to that world?" asked Sarah.

_Now what made her think of that?_ wondered Alex. He was about to chide her for such a leap of logic, but the idea intrigued him. Could that actually be a stable wormhole?

"There is only one way to find out."


	16. Chapter 15

Alex moved past Sarah out through the entranceway into the cave. He could see both Lt. Barrow and Fenske frantically working and slowly succeeding in restoring the work stations back to full operation. Alex looked around the cave. They did a good job clearing up the cave but there was plenty of what he needed at the edges. He walked over near to where Kraus was working and picked out a rock, one that was not too heavy, not too small, one that he can…

Kraus suddenly shouted excitedly, "Oh my God! That rock! It's the key to solve everything!"

Alex looked at the rock and then back to Kraus, confused by the outburst.

A broad smile crossed Kraus' face, "Nope, sorry, it's just a rock," he said giggling.

Alex shot him a look of exasperation. Kraus continued, "So are you using that rock to fix the artifact in the same way one would use a rock to fix a wonky television?"

Alex rolled his eyes, "You know, I think I liked you better during the helicopter ride." He then proceeded to return to The Obelisk to the sound of uproarious laughter coming from Kraus.

Alex stopped next to Sarah, "Your friend Dr. Kraus has an odd sense of humour."

"Oh? Hadn't noticed," Alex shot her a quizzical glance, "Married to Rick, remember?" she explained.

Alex smiled and nodded in understanding. Rick was always the class clown and daredevil. People watching _Rick Marshall Animal Doctor_ usually think that his antics on the show are all part of an on-screen personae. Those that know him know that it's all him, in fact probably somewhat subdued due to the nature of it being a kids educational show. Next to Rick, everyone else seems deadpan serious.

Simon motioned to Alex, "While you were gone, I noticed something. There appears to be another light source."

Alex walked up and peered at the image. It was difficult to see due to the brightness of the large moon, but the area closest to the image appeared to be brighter than the surrounding area. Long shadows cast from the small undulating mounds of the barren soil were being washed out.

"A fifth moon?" speculated Alex.

Simon looked uncertain at first then shook his head, "I don't think so; it looks like a local source."

Alex nodded. Of course he was right, the light only radiated out in a small semi-circle a short distance. Alex decided to slowly walk around to the other side of the image to see if he could gain a different perspective. The radiating light pattern didn't seem to change though it was difficult to see since it was no longer working against the moonlight but with it, however…

"I can see another Obelisk!" shouted Alex in excitement. Despite the half-twilight, it wasn't difficult to see. The diamond doorway glistened while the rest of it stood out as darker than dark against the night sky.

"Is it the source of the light?" asked Simon.

"No. I know this might sound odd, but I think we're the source of the light."

"No, doesn't sound odd at all," replied Simon, "With a second Obelisk there, perhaps this is part of some intergalactic network."

"Connecting different worlds through stable wormholes," breathed Alex excitedly as he made his way back to the console. "There is only one way to test it for sure."

Alex lifted the rock and was about to shot put it when Sarah stopped him. "Let's wait a minute. I think we might want to record this." Sarah leaned outside and said something that was unheard by Alex and Simon.

"Why doesn't she act more surprise over what we found?" wondered Simon out loud. Alex thought this was a good question.

Sarah moved her head back in. "Okay, we're good to go. Everything is back up and running. I'm going to get out of your hair and observe from out there. Okay?" She was met with nods, and then left.

Alex heaved the rock. It hit the outer limit of the image and disappeared for a fraction of a second. It quickly reappeared inside of the image flying along the same arc and landing in the soil with a dull thump, half-burying itself and kicking up a small cloud of dust that hung in the air before slowly wafting away.

Both Alex and Simon let out a cheer of excitement, shook each other's hands, and wrapped an arm around each other's shoulders.

"My God! Once we learn to control this thing, we can go anywhere in the universe!" enthused Simon.

…_learn to control…_that single phrase poured cold water on Alex's excitement. They were doing better than his metaphorical caveman and automobile analogy, but they still had a long way to go to actually figure out how this machine works.

"Perhaps we should see if we can shut this down before we proceed," suggested Alex.

Simon looked at Alex and suddenly appeared crestfallen, as if his new toy was about to be taken away from him. He then regained his composure and nodded, "What do you suggest?"

"Well let's first try to take out that crystal and see what happens."

Simon lifted out the crystal he had removed previously. Both looked at the gateway image, but the sphere persisted, wavering not one bit.

"Well that's odd," observed Alex.

"It must use an entirely different concept for its on/off sequence," postulated Simon.

"It would seem so. Try rotating the crystal one notch to see what happens."

Simon rotated the crystal one sixth clockwise and placed it back into the slot. The image clouded briefly before returning, changed. The sky was not as dark, small tendrils of light still snaked up giving the horizon a purple glow. Now only one moon could be seen, the largest one this time as a slim waning crescent. The small fourth moon appeared once again slowly moving down towards the horizon, and once again it's phases noticeably shifting as it moved. Alex took a closer look at the surface. The rock that he threw was still there, the soil covering the buried part looked undisturbed, but he could see that mini-dunes of soil built up around the visible part, and could make out tiny dry rivulets snaking from it. It was obvious there was erosion occurring and that rain and water must be present. But those observations were of minor importance to the much larger truth he witnessed…

"This thing doesn't just connect through different points in space; it connects through different points in time!"


	17. Chapter 16

"Great, Adrian can come to work tomorrow dressed as Doctor Who," Simon's voice dripped with sarcasm.

Alex was perplexed by Simon's underwhelming response. He expected a little bit more enthusiasm; he even had his hand up expecting a high five, "How come you're not excited by this?"

"Imagine we get to find a rocket ship to the stars, but the then we find out: 'Oh, hey, it's also equipped with a nuclear warhead! Great….'"

Alex couldn't help but chuckle at Simon's metaphor, "I'm not sure I follow…"

"Time travel is dangerous. What would stop us from accidently erasing the human race? Or giving Hitler a victory in World War II? Or giving us season 2 of _The Event_?"

Alex let out a big laugh, "What, you have a time travel phobia?"

"Come on! Time travel is a dangerous business. The last thing I want to have happen is somebody going back in time stepping on a butterfly and killing my grandmother."

Alex could feel tears of amusement welling in his eyes, but he understood Simon's anxiety and didn't want to come across as belittling his fears and his mixed clichés, "It doesn't work that way. Trust me, I've done the math."

Simon shot him an annoyed look.

"You don't have to worry; it's actually safer than going to alien worlds. Anything that would happen has already happened. If for example somebody tried to go back in time to assassinate Hitler, we know it fails because Hitler was never assassinated," Simon had his back to Alex studying the console, so he couldn't tell if Simon was reassured or not.

"Are you at all familiar with the TV series _Stargate SG-1_?"

It seemed like a complete non-sequitur; he wasn't sure where Simon was going with it, "I'm familiar enough with its concept."

"Well basically, much like us, an alien artifact is found that allows them to travel through the universe, but only to places where another stargate is already present."

"So you are saying that this can only connect to places in space and time where an Obelisk already exists?" Simon nodded an affirmative, "I would feel better about this hypothesis if the wormhole actually opened inside that other Obelisk," Alex paused as a counter-argument occurred to him, "Then again interstellar drift might have caused its connect point to move…"

Alex became lost in thought. A tiny germ of an idea was planted in his head, but couldn't quite grasp it yet. His thoughts drifted from questions about how the console worked to how The Obelisk actually got to Earth. Simon said something that Alex only nodded absentmindedly to. He stared at the alien landscape and slowly mathematical formula was being written on what he often called his 'mental whiteboard'. Out of the corner of his eye he saw it. He also saw Simon replacing the centre emerald crystal with a black one.

"No don't!" he screamed, but it was too late. Simon slid the black crystal into the slot and almost immediately the console exploded. There was a large electrical discharge that hit Simon causing him to fly past Alex and hit the far wall; its thunderclap stunned Alex forcing him to the ground and causing his ears to ring. The sphere clouded over, its shape became erratic and then collapsed within seconds.

Alex tried to shake the cobwebs. The smell of acrid smoke filled the air while a repeating klaxon-like sound blared. Alex looked back at the console. It was blackened, most of the crystals destroyed and small tendrils of smoke wafted up. The light inside The Obelisk dimmed and turned blue.

Alex struggled to his feet and stumbled towards Simon. Much to his surprise the engineer was still alive though slipping in and out of consciousness. His hands and chest were burnt and his hair was stiff and frizzy.

"Come on buddy, let's get you out of here," Alex struggled to lift him up; he was pretty much dead weight.

"…dinosaurs…so big…bad breath…" mumbled Simon before falling back to unconsciousness.

Alex managed to get one arm of Simon's around his shoulder and then realized it would be simpler to just drag him out. As he shifted he noticed a holographic display appeared above the destroyed console. Alien script scrolled downwards and then shifted from right to left. Periodically small groupings of characters would show as bright blue and flash. Suddenly and prominently at the bottom six blue characters typed itself out and then started changing. The top character changed rapidly while second from top changed much slower. Alex could make out that it went through six iterations of characters before the next character down would change. He quickly figured that it was a countdown, and a rough calculation showed that there was ten minutes. Ten minutes to what, he could only guess, but he knew it wouldn't be something good. He decided he would have to come back later to examine it; his priority would have to be getting Simon out of here and get medical help topside.

Lt. Barrow and Sarah were at the doorway. The Lieutenant quickly lifted up Simon and placed one arm over his shoulder allowing Alex to do the same on the other side. No sooner had they cleared The Obelisk than the klaxon sound stopped. Alex paused and looked back. The door was now closed; the cables that were connected to the camera were severed cleanly. The group then moves quickly to the cage elevator. They place Simon gently in and close the gate. Sarah pushed a button and within seconds the elevator lifted up.

Alex looked around the cave and saw the workstations for the first time. All the computers were destroyed, small wisps of smoke drifted upwards from them. Fenske and Morton were standing looking stunned. Kraus still squatted over the skeleton he was trying to extract looking uncertain whether to proceed.

"What happened?" asked Sarah her voice full of alarm, "The last thing we observed was David replacing a control crystal with another one in an attempt collapse the wormhole."

"I think he used the wrong crystal and overloaded the system." Alex stared at The Obelisk. Did it look…brighter?

"Is it safe now?"

"No, I think we need to evacuate as quickly as possible. And by that, I mean everyone in the camp as well."


	18. Chapter 17

Sarah's eyes widened with fear and then narrowed with determination, "Lieutenant! I need you to head topside next!"

"With all due respect ma'am," replied Lt. Barrow as he walked towards Sarah, "I think it's better that I stay down here and help out the best I can."

"No. I need you to go up and inform them of what is happening and to begin evacuation of the camp."

Alex decided that he needed to make one last attempt to get inside The Obelisk. He raced over started pressing the same sequence he initially used to open the artifact. It failed to open. He next tried the reverse sequence with no avail. He then tried the four remaining combinations, none of which succeeded in opening the door. In desperation he started doing random combinations but quickly realized the futility of it. If it was possible to open the door it might require a lengthy combination, but more likely it was permanently locked. He pounded the door in frustration.

The elevator clanged hard behind him and he heard Sarah shout, "Lieutenant, go!"

Alex's frustration gave way to alarm. After he pounded the door he leaned against it, he could feel that The Obelisk was warmer to the touch. He walked back to where Sarah and now Fenske were standing.

"Does The Obelisk not look as black as before?" Alex asked.

Both Sarah and Fenske looked at each other; Sarah nodded, "What does that mean?"

Alex didn't answer; he was distracted by a blinking light. He looked over and saw that the spectroscope was operational. He went over to it, "How come this thing is still working?"

"It would be a very poor spectroscope if a simple EMP knocked it out," answered Fenske.

Alex studied it. It was an unusual design, attached to it was a sophisticated display screen, similar in size and shape to that of a smart phone. Next to the screen were a bunch of buttons labeled with acronyms that he had trouble understanding. He motioned to Fenske, "Can you show me how to work this?"

Fenske looked back to the elevator shaft, then back to Alex and finally walked over with an air of resignation. He quickly went into presentation mode explaining the basics of the machine before Alex stopped him, "Perhaps it would be quicker if you just punched up a graph of the entire EM spectrum, preferably as a bar graph."

Fenske's fingers moved quickly over the controls and the required graph appeared.

"Now how do you scale it up and down?"

"You press _x_ and use the arrow keys," explained Fenske, "For the _y_ axis you…"

"That's okay; I just need the _x_ axis."

The elevator clanged, "Okay Adrian, you're next, go!" shouted Sarah.

Fenske turned and ran for the elevator. As he closed the gate he shouted over to Alex, "You know, I don't have a Doctor Who costume…here," and with that he speedily rose up out of sight.

Alex just stared at the graph while adjusting the scale. He took a quick look at his watch but it no longer functioned, he then took out his smart phone and it similarly was non-functioning. Alex cursed under his breath.

Morton peered over Alex's shoulder at the display, "I don't need a Ph.D. in astrophysics to know what that means."

Sarah overhearing that remark let out an alarmed shout of, "What? What's wrong?"

"The Obelisk is spewing out energy across the whole spectrum, including ultraviolet and x-ray radiation," said Alex grimly.

"If we stay here, we're going to be parboiled," added Morton.

"How long do we have?"

Instead of answering Sarah, Alex held up a finger to tell her to wait a minute. In the absence of effective timekeeping devices, he had to resort to counting by 'mississippis'. He wasn't happy with result, "The energy level is increasing exponentially. It's doubling every 25 to 30 seconds. For how long we can survive this, I have no idea. Not my field of expertise."

The elevator clanged again. Morton and Kraus locked eyes. Kraus spoke, "You go, I want to try to retrieve some of these remains."

"Okay Professor, go!" ordered Sarah, "John, you have 45 seconds to finish up!"

Morton entered the cage, and pushed the button to signal he was ready, and ascended. Kraus meanwhile grumbled at Sarah, "Well I could use some help, if you're not too busy."

Sarah quickly joined Kraus. Together they feverishly started to remove remains from the entombing limestone, taking seconds when normally it would take minutes, using brute force when normally it would require finesse.

Alex meanwhile continued to study the graph, continuing counting and continuing getting the same results. The Obelisk was no longer black, but now appeared a deep indigo. He was getting more and more disquieted about the direction this was heading.

The elevator clanged again. Kraus and Sarah quickly wrapped up the bones they were able to retrieve in burlap and hurried to the cage. Kraus entered with his prize, and signaled to the surface. As he lifted up he shouted to Sarah, "Please don't stay down here longer than you have to." With that, he was gone.

Sarah walked over to Alex, "Okay, you're next."

"No."

"Look, you can't stay…"

"I have no intention of staying," interrupted Alex, "but you need me to stay as long as I can monitoring this energy build up. Besides, you have a husband and two kids who still need their mom, I don't have that. You need to go."

Sarah was about to open her mouth for rebuttal but one quick look from Alex caused her to close it again. They remained in silence until the elevator returned.

"Quickly Sarah, go!"

She quickly rushed to the cage. Once she was in and signaled, she turned around. Alex could see she had tears in her eyes. As the elevator rose, he shouted after her, "Don't take too long sending it back, I might still want children some day!" He was now alone.

He looked at The Obelisk. It had now shifted from indigo to a dark blue, its colour changes now apparent to the naked eye. He hoped he still had a minute. He hoped he wasn't already a dead man walking. He started working out the energy release of a potential explosion of the artifact. The numbers were mind-boggling, even if the majority of it was released extra-dimensionally…

Alex realized he was sweating, and promptly took off his jacket. The cave was starting to heat up. The Obelisk was becoming a brighter and brighter blue. He knew he didn't have much time. His skin didn't feel hot to the touch yet, which he took to be a good sign, but he knew he only had seconds, not minutes.

The elevator clanged. Alex raced for it, entered, closed the gate and feverishly pushed the signal button. He rose up, very quickly, his knees almost buckled from the sudden acceleration. It certainly moved faster than from when he first descended. He was happy that he was leaving, even though it felt like a futile effort. His only hope now was that his math was very, very wrong.


	19. Chapter 18

He reached the top and he was temporarily blinded by the bright sunshine.

"Hurry, this way! You too, he's the last one, hurry!"

Alex blinked as his eyes slowly adjusted to the light, he could see the outline of who was talking, "Sarah! What are you still doing here? I told you to go!"

"I'm not leaving anyone behind. Come on, you're the last ones, we have a jeep waiting."

Alex saw the crane operator running for the jeep and realized why Sarah was talking in the plural. She grabbed Alex's arm and started pulling him to the vehicle. He finally was able to get his legs moving and jumped into the back seat with Sarah while the crane operator jumped into the front seat next to the driver.

"That's everyone, go!" commanded Sarah.

The jeep speedily took off towards the road that led to the helicopter landing.

Sarah shouted at Alex, "How far do we need to go to get a safe distance?"

Alex just shook his head sadly. How could he possibly tell her that the resulting explosion will probably split the Earth and end all life? The look of resignation in Sarah's eyes told him that no more was needed to be said.

The jeep hit the road hard painfully bouncing its passengers. Its wheels spun looking for traction on the muddy surface briefly finding it and moving the vehicle forward and upward in a jerky fashion before losing the traction at the next section. The crane operator shouted something to the driver that Alex couldn't make out, but it caused the driver to ease off the gas and allowed the jeep to move forward at slower but steadier pace.

Suddenly there was a deafening 'WHUMP!' sound. The ground shook hard causing the driver to lose control. The jeep drove off the road into the trees and upending onto its side spilling its passengers. A thick cloud of dust billowed over them and up the roadway.

Alex laid face down on the ground stunned and coughing violently from the dust cloud. After long seconds, perhaps it was minute, he turned over. Apart from the hard bump he was unhurt. He tried opening his eyes, but was forced to blink furiously in an effort to keep the grit out. He could make out that the cloud was already dissipating, and through it he could make out blue sky. He struggled to get to his feet. He could see that Sarah, the driver and the crane operator were all unhurt but like him were coughing from the dust and tried to clean out their eyes. He had to get back to the site and see what happened. He quickly clambered down the road back towards the clearing. He didn't need to go far to see what had happened.

The dust cleared and settled, and what was left was a sinkhole, rounded like a bowl some forty to fifty metres in diameter. The elevator crane lay at the bottom broken, its long boom twisted, reaching out of the hole and lying on several crushed tents. Some tents had slid down the embankment into the hole. The rest flattened from the resulting shockwave. The boring crane stood teetering on the far edge of the chasm unable to decide between staying put and joining his crushed brother.

Alex started to giggle uncontrollably. He was never so happy to be so wrong about a hypothesis.

"Well that was…disappointing."

Alex stopped giggling and looked at the voice. It was Prof. Morton; he somehow managed to run down the roadway to join him. At first he thought that Morton was unimpressed with how spectacular the explosion was, it took him a couple of seconds to realize that he probably meant something else.

"Does that look like and explosion or implosion to you?" asked Alex.

Morton raised an eyebrow at the question, "Implosion most definitely. There is no raised crater rim, no spread of debris other than dust. Why? Does that mean something to you?"

"I think so."

Alex could hear the voices and footsteps of approaching people. He turned around and could see the two colonels and half a dozen military personnel racing down the path as well as Sarah, who was covered in mud and dust slowly approaching. It wasn't hard to imagine what he must have looked like at the moment.

"I'm so sorry Alex," apologized Sarah, "I should have listened to you."

At first Alex was confused to what he she was referring to before he remembered his early objections about plowing ahead with the trial and error approach. "Actually Simon wasn't completely wrong."

Alex received confused looks from everyone around him, he decided to explain; "He believed that such an advance piece of technology would have fail-safes to prevent us from accidentally blowing ourselves up. He was right up to an extent. Even though we set off an uncontrollable reaction, The Obelisk had a fail-safe built in that sent it into extra-dimensional space, apparently taking a small chunk of our universe with it so it would explode harmlessly there. However it waited until we were safely out of range before the fail-safe activated. It says something about the builders and their respect for life."

"So there is no chance of it still being down there?" asked Col. Brock.

"Well you can still dig to check it out if you want to, but I'm pretty sure everything that was down there will be gone. Shame really, it was probably the most important find in the history of the world."

"Well we still have all our recordings, data and scientific analysis of the artifact. We can gather it up, organize it and publish it. Should still be an 'earth-shaker'."

"Actually Col. Brock, I think I would prefer that we keep it a secret for now. I firmly believe there is another one out there."

This time everyone turned to Sarah to look at her in surprise, even shock.

"When I was in the cave, I came across some Egyptian hieroglyphs. With a little bit of work I was able to make out a couple of words and a name: Khasekhemwy. He was the last pharaoh of the second dynasty and was noted for reuniting Egypt into a single kingdom. I suspect I know how. I figured if a bunch of ancient Egyptians could operate an Obelisk without blowing themselves up, we could."

"Do you have any idea where this second Obelisk could be?" asked Alex.

"Well there are a number of areas it could be. I suspect perhaps Abydos or Umm el-Qa'ab are the most likely locations. As you may or may not know, I pioneered a process of using ground penetrating satellite radar to map the ancient ruins of Egypt. Since I know what I'm looking for now, we might be able to find it on the radar maps."

"The current Egyptian government isn't exactly going to be receptive us poking around for it," observed Col. Brock.

"I know, but I have an archeologist friend there that will help us. He's a Coptic Christian and not exactly enamored with the current president. But we need to keep this very hush-hush, or we will lose access."

"I'm not sure how this will make any difference," remarked Morton, "The Obelisk can't be moved. Eventually somebody is going to figure that it's there."

Alex smiled, he had been waiting for this moment; "Actually, I think I can help you with that."


	20. Epilogue

**Intelligence Advanced Research Projects Activity (IARPA), Office of the Director of National Intelligence, Washington, D.C.**

**Two weeks later.**

Dr. Peter Highnam sat back in his plush leather chair and smiled as he casually skimmed the report. Sarah knew he had already previously read it and had his analysts examine and report on it. This was just a formality.

"Quite the introduction I'm getting," laughed Dr. Highnam, "I was only just appointed director of IARPA last week. I thought I knew what I was getting myself into."

Sarah smiled, "If I can handle this, I'm pretty sure a man with your credentials can handle this." She wasn't being insincere. Sarah familiarized herself with Dr. Highnam prior to the meeting. He had an impressive resume. She wished she had him on her team in Belize.

"Well I know those two," he said pointing to two portraits hanging in his office. The first one was of President Barak Obama; the second was the Director of National Intelligence James Clapper, "have a great deal of faith in me, so I don't plan on disappointing."

Dr. Highnam shifted forward in his seat and placed the report on his desk, his demeanor remained light, "I don't have to tell you that your project has been approved and is being fast-tracked through the next stage. I just have a couple of questions and then I will hand you over to the next office."

Sarah just nodded; it was obvious he wasn't going to bring her into his office just to tell her something she already knew and a phone call could just as easily confirmed.

"How is David Simon?"

Okay, she didn't expect that question, but that didn't matter, "He's fine except for, uh, an unusual side-effect. The burns on his hands and chest are healing. The doctors say he won't need skin grafts but he will have some minor scarring. His prognosis is otherwise excellent."

"That's good news. Now the name: TAO-2?"

"Ah yes, it stands for The Alien Obelisk. The Belize artifact was TAO-1; a hypothetical Far East Obelisk would be designated TAO-3 and the Obelisk that was observed on the alien world is designated as TAO-Alpha."

"Have you been able to locate TAO-2 yet?"

"No, I haven't been able to go over the radar data yet. It will be difficult; an Obelisk has a small footprint, so it will show up as a single pixel of black. The trick will be to differentiate it from a pixel of lost data."

"Well fortunately we have the resources to help you. Now do you accept Dr. Boynton's belief that he can move TAO-2?"

"Yes, as outlined in the report, his rationale is basically sound. I wouldn't be here if I didn't accept it."

"Now I believe he is asking assistance of a mathematician…" Dr. Highnam paused and picked up the report and started to flip through it. Sarah could tell that he was struggling over the name.

"Dr. Stefan Ptaszek of the University of Arizona," prompted Sarah, "Dr. Boynton is trying to create a Base 6 spatial and temporal co-ordinate system with an adaptive algorithm that can be modified to suit whatever system the control console uses. The math is a little beyond Alex, uh, Dr. Boynton's ability and he needs the help. Is that going to be a problem?"

"Uh," Dr. Highnam started rifling through some folders. He found what he was looking, and gave a broad smile, "Ah, yes. Dr. Ptaszek already has government security clearance through work he has done for the NSA. We will pass the information along to them so they can quietly inform Dr. Ptaszek about the sensitive nature of Dr. Boynton's work. He won't have to worry about being discreet. Now I do have a serious question to ask you. If the Egyptian government were to find out what you are up to, all the goodwill you have built up with them, all the work you've done for them will mean nothing. You become _persona non-grata_; you will be barred for life from that country. Ancient Egypt will be forever lost to you. Are you prepared for the consequences of your actions?"

Sarah swallowed hard, "It's not something I take lightly. I realize this could take me down a new career path, but I feel it is something that is too important to not pursue."

"Now finally I see that you requested the use of Groom Lake Air Force Base as the location to move TAO-2 and to serve as a research facility for it."

"Yes, the remoteness of it, as well as the high security make it an ideal location, assuming of course that they have the space. I'm hoping they have an empty hanger that we can use."

"Well that decision requires a much higher security clearance then what I have. I can assure you all the different options will be looked at, and whatever location is decided on, it will meet all your needs." Dr. Highnam paused and smiled, "Of course if they do choose Groom Lake, you know what that means."

Sarah laughed, "Yes I do."

**Tiburon, CA**

**Three days later.**

Sarah pulled into the driveway of her home. Their domicile was a large sprawling ranch-style house. By most standards it would be considered to be affluent. By Tiburon standards it was considered 'modest'. Sometimes Sarah missed their first house in Berkley. It was small, but it was within walking distance of the University, and on long commute days, she would often wistfully wish she was back in that house. Today, however, after a long flight and a long car ride that contained a necessary detour, she was happy to be back home. Right now she just wanted nothing more than to lay back in her favourite comfy chair with a glass of wine, listening to some light jazz and reveling in the luxury.

Sarah grabbed her duffel bag with all her personal items and walked towards the house. She would come back for the rest of her stuff after she had a chance to relax. She tried the front door and found it to be unlocked; Rick must be home. She entered and dropped her bag on the floor with a thud, and inhaled deeply. One of the things that not too many people know about Rick is his passion for gourmet cooking. Sarah could tell from the smell that he was busy in the kitchen and whatever it was he was cooking set off pangs of hunger in her. Perhaps the wine can wait…

Rick popped his head from behind some cabinets, "Sarah! I wasn't expecting you!"

"I wanted to surprise you."

Rick rushed over to his wife and embraced her with passion. It was a month since they last saw each other.

"I didn't think you would be back for another month."

Sarah gave a weary smile, "Turned out to be an elaborate hoax. What a mess that was. The excavation process they used destabilized the cave causing it to collapse. Luckily only one person was hurt. It could have been much worse."

"Wow! Well I'm glad you're home now, you look a little roughed up."

"Yeah, it was a long flight. A long drive too. I got a call when I landed and had to make a detour to the University. I've been asked to go on a dig in Egypt next May. The Egyptian Ministry of State for Antiquities is looking at doing some digs around Abydos related to the Second Dynasty and the pharaoh Khasekhemwy."

Rick looked at her with suspicious eyes, "Now that sounds like a made up name."

Sarah stammered in shock at the accusation, however a broad smile broke across his face and a loud laugh escaped his lips, "I'm kidding, I love it when you geek out."

Sarah playfully smacked him and they leaned in and kissed passionately. The kind of kiss of lovers separated for too long…

"You two should get a room!"

A startled Sarah looked over and saw her gothic/punk daughter Holly with arms crossed looking at her parents with disdain. The pink hair was new.

"What are you doing home?" then Sarah looked at Rick, "What is she doing home?"

Rick let out a sigh of exasperation, "Trust me, you don't want to know."

"I am being unfairly persecuted!" Holly said with an air of indignation.

"Fine," retorted Rick, "why don't you protest by refusing to use the computer, iPad, cell phone or any electronic device ever. I figure it should collapse the California economy within a week, and then everyone will come crawling back to you seeking forgiveness."

As the fight continued, Sarah went over to a nearby counter and put her head down. Suddenly the next nine months seemed very long…

**Kaieteur Falls, Kaieteur National Park, Guyana**

**Five months later.**

The Kaieteur is a majestic waterfall that has the waters of the Potaro River cascade an impressive 226 metres down into its lower gorge. However right now the water flow has slowed to a trickle and despite being in a rainforest, the dry season has settled in. The air is hot and humid but the sky is a cloudless blue showing no signs that it's about to release its moisture.

Several streaks of lightning suddenly arc out of the gorge into the still cloudless sky. Their boom causes the many resting birds to fly away in terror and calls of alarm from multiple species spread through the forest. A glowing ball appears next to the falls. The energy that it's emitting starts to cause the moisture in the humid air to collect and a brand new cloud bank starts to form building higher and higher into the sky. Rain starts to fall, wind starts to swirl and this time lightning strikes from the building thunderheads to the ground below.

As the maelstrom spreads across the region, the atmosphere releasing its grip on its water in a torrential downpour, a small creature falls screaming from the centre of the glowing sphere. The creature is lizard-like about the size of a chicken with a long tail and neck, small sharp teeth in its mouth, and with green and brown mottled skin colouring and prominent yellow spots. The creature also has some bird-like qualities. It is bipedal; with three toes on each foot, and it still possesses some of the downy feathers that it was born with. Unfortunately for the creature though instead of wings, it has two forearms with three fingers on each hand and a prominent claw as its middle digit. That twist in evolution dooms the creature.

As a small mercy the creature strikes an outstretched branch breaking its neck. It is dead before it hits the mossy rocks below.

A kilometre downstream, two zoologists climb to escape the suddenly rising water and to seek shelter from the violent rainstorm.


End file.
